Benefits of being TOOTHLESS

                                                      picture courtesy Google images

Hi guys  ,

Our college had very few ‘ natural ‘ patients in some departments . If you had read my previous post in this category you would be knowing that already , if not , well I am telling you now 🙂 . We paid the ‘non natural’ ones and with each treatment they got richer .  For students in majority of the private dental colleges in India this is a crisis .

I was into the last phase of Prosthodontics posting (that is where we replace the missing tooth or teeth) when I realised that I needed one more patient and had only a week left  . We were 6 in a batch . Waiting for 6 new patients to come in that week wasn’t a good idea . It was final year and I was worried .That is when a senior mentioned David uncle .

And so it was David uncle , my saviour , my last complete denture patient for that year .

The next day as I walked to the department  he was there waiting for me . I never knew the amount of happiness a toothless smile could give till that very moment . He was a patient to the college since it’s first batch and we were the seventh . We paid him 500 Indian rupees per sitting and there were five . With the number of dentures he had , he could easily get a place in the Guinness Book of World Records if he wished . My work was just three dentures old but the knowledge he possessed I couldn’t imagine . It was time for  me to take the secondary impression and while I was taking the tray to his mouth, he said “ you haven’t mixed it right , my child ” . 

“ what ?” I asked quite surprised . 

He was right .

I did manage to complete the denture in a week’s time . There were lots of suggestions and tips from David uncle which I used though . One couldn’t blame the students for fighting to have him as their patient for the boards ( I was among them too ) .He would never let you down even if your work did . I wouldn’t be surprised if he were given a teaching post at our college either .

I graduated from college the next year ,a better dentist , it’s been 3 years now and the last I heard of him was that he was building a house ,at 85 that is , being TOOTHLESS was how he achieved it !!!

😉